THE country marked 79 years of independence with a ceremony in the unfinished future capital of Nusantara, which was planned to relieve pressure on Jakarta but whose construction has lagged behind schedule.
Hundreds of officials and invited guests wearing the traditional clothes of Indonesian tribes gathered yesterday on a stretch of grass amid the ongoing construction of government buildings and view of construction cranes in the centre of Nusantara city.
President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, and his Cabinet ministers attended the Independence Day ceremony at the new Presidential Palace, built in the shape of the mythical eagle-winged protector figure Garuda.
The celebration was initially planned to inaugurate Nusantara as the country’s new capital, but with construction behind schedule it’s not clear when the transfer will take place.
Jokowi earlier said that 8,000 guests would be invited, but the number was later reduced to 1,300 because adequate infrastructure was not in place.
The celebration at the new State Palace on the island of Borneo was held simultaneously with a celebration at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta that was attended by Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin.
Jokowi began working at the new presidential palace in Nusantara in late July and held his first Cabinet meeting there on Tuesday.
More than 5,000 officers from Indonesia’s police and military were deployed for the ceremony and 76 honorary flag-bearers marched behind the national red-and-white banner.
The old capital Jakarta floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that congestion costs the economy an estimated US$4.5bil (RM20bil) a year.
It has also been described as the world’s most rapidly sinking city. It is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050, because of uncontrolled ground water extraction, as well as climate change.
The construction of the new capital began in mid-2022, spread over an area of about 2,600 sq km carved out of Borneo’s jungle. Officials say it will be a futuristic green city with abundant forests and parks, powered by renewable energy sources and using smart waste management.
But the project has been dogged by criticism from environmentalists and Indigenous communities, who say it degrades the environment, further shrinks the habitat of endangered animals like the orang utan, as well as displaces Indigenous people. — AP
